1. Well, shit.
   
2. To avoid crying in front of strangers, you call your mother from the car. You downplay the situation immediately and mute yourself when you’re not speaking so she can’t hear the hyperventilating.
   
3. “No, I didn’t do a self-check.”
   
4. You’ve been given an informational pamphlet with too many phone numbers and no immediate solutions. You read it once and then begin to Google.
   
5. You’re definitely hungover. You also definitely want a drink.
   
6. After mass-texting and canceling on most everyone you’ve made plans with for the week, you attempt to change your reservations without actually knowing your future schedule.
   
7. You decide not to tell your friends every detail. At least not for a while. It would take up space in too many stories and you need to figure out how to tell the story yourself before other people beat you to it.
   
8. You’re probably overdressed for this.
   
9. You wonder what it would mean to be ‘underdressed’ for this.
   
10. It’s not like you haven’t thought about this day. Everyone thinks about this day. But now that you’re here, you’re starting to wonder if you’ve picked the right group of girlfriends to be there for you.
    
11. You start to browse online forums because you can’t be the only one going through something like this. There are lots of stories—some funny, some not—and you bookmark them to show people when you eventually say all of this out loud. “Look, it’ll be okay. I found this story and it all turned out just fine!” or “look, it could be worse. This chick said she literally died so…”
    
12. People around you keep saying ‘terminal’ but you’ve no idea when you’ll get there.
    
13. Everyone is looking at you. At least, it feels like everyone is looking at you and you know they know and you know what they’re thinking. You want to sink into your seat and disappear.
    
14. “I have insurance. Does that cover something like this?”
    
15. You wonder if you’ll ever be able to fit so perfectly into this dress again. It shouldn’t matter so much—you know that—but you still wonder.
    
16. You call your mother again. You tell her everything and she says it’s going to be okay. You don’t believe her. You’re glad you called.

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Caitlin Upshall (she/her/hers) holds a B.A. in English from Western Washington University and is currently based in the United Kingdom. When she’s not writing, she enjoys most things dinosaur-related and trivia nights. You can find her on Instagram at @CaitlinUpshall or at www.caitlinupshall.com.